I recently saw a Cleo Abrams video about particle accelerators and the lead scientist said that they use particle accelerators to create the building blocks for future innovations.
I’m sure advancements have been made only because particle accelerators exist but I don’t know any. Can someone highlight a direct influence particle accelerators have on our daily lives?
In: Physics
Particle physics at that level isn’t currently in itself the basis for any technology that directly benefits humanity.
But neither was Electromagnetism, Radioactivity, General Relativity or Quantum Theory when they were first discovered and probed.
And without those you wouldn’t have nuclear power plants supplying electricity to semiconductor-driven phones with LCD or OLED screens, capable of recieving GPS signals from solar panel powered satellites which atomic clocks need to account for difference in gravity in orbit.
That’s the point of fundamental science, understanding how the world works has to come first, before we can do anything useful with it.
That aside, particle acceletors themselves are useful beyond particle smashing. They produce radioactive elements used in medicine and other devices, while others are used as radiation sources for powerful non-invasive scanning and analysis.
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